Perfect for Mother's Day: the Baby Be of Use series or The Secret Language of Sleep. - - - - |
Memphis, 1976.BY JILLY DYBKA
for the benefit of Elvis: C'mon, girls, ya'll get rough with each other. Good Dr. Nick has given enough pills to make The King a bloated wisp of what he was. Christmastime. And his fans have trapped him in his mansion. Fans flock to see decorations at Graceland. The gaudy tourists know not what lies behind the locked door. Elvis, imperial on the couch, popping pills as the young girls romp with one another. Some think Elvis lost it when his mother Gladys died. Grief, wiggling its hips, fans his fetishes. There are not enough pills, not enough Cadillacs parked at Graceland to fill the vacancy in Elvis. He has become a Vegas shade of what he used to be. He tries to forget what it was like to be that younger, other, Ann-Margret-screwing Elvis. The icon who could cause the fans to faint, to climb over the wall at Graceland. Now it is the couch and the 25 pills a day. Amphetamines, downers, painkillers—Elvis gladly takes whatever Dr. Nick will give. Holed up in Graceland cleaning his guns, one after another, he shoots the TV. A King is no fan of Robert Goulet. O Elvis, drug-addled and swollen Elvis, abandon the girls in their underwear, pills on your tongue, heavy pinkie rings. Your fans would cry Elvis! Elvis! instead of What's wrong with the King? They would embrace each other while waiting in the rain outside Graceland. You lay in the pill-womb of Graceland while fate fanned your fame, Elvis. What America adores, she devours. And so she looks for another.
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